THE QUESTION OF WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE. [To see Bruns or
Tee “Sesorarou."]
Sin,—May I suggest that Mrs. Grosvenor's letter in your issue of last Saturday should be circulated as a tract by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and all the other religions societies P Who so likely to understand, control, and develop the mysteries and potentialities of "Mother Earth " as mothers and prospective mothers P It is an incontrovertible fact that the majority of successful farmers owe to their wives and womankind a large measure of their success, so it naturally follows that most farmers with their heads screwed on properly marry farmers' daughters. I was at a meeting of the Bible Society nearly forty years ago; the deputation was the Rev. Dr. Moffat, who told of his work amongst the Bechuanaa. He related how Mrs. Moffat was much exercised in mind because the women tilled the ground and built new huts on a change of the site of a village. On one occasion, he said, they arrived at such a new village. The women were building the mud and wattle dwellings, the men lying idle in the shade. Mrs. Moffat "ordered "him, he said, to speak to the men and tell them how shameful their conduct was, &m. As soon as he had finished his address, the women, with one accord, pointed fingers of scorn at the men, yelling in unison: "What! those things build houses!" In "Old England" who managed the land when the lord and his men were away at the wars P Xenophon in his Treatise of House- holds, as my crib has it, says:—
"For commonly geodes and substance do come into the house by the labour and poise of the man, but the woman is she for the moats parte, that kepeth and bestoweth it where node is."
My copy "is ryght cunnyngly translated out of the Greke tongs into Englyshe, by Gentlest Hervet, at the deayre of mayster Geffrey Pole, which boke for the welthe of this realms, I dame very profitable to be red."
Also, may I commend to your readers the treatise on Husbandry by Master Anthony Fitzherbarde? for although manners and customs have changed, it may be well for us all to remember that the saying "our pious ancestors "is no empty
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